Daily history

Good Morning,


Quote(s) of the day:

"We are destined to speak a given number of words in our lifetime. Choose them carefully."

                                        Al Campbell

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed in the things you didn't do, than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover."

                                          Mark Twain
This quote is courtesy of a vignette rendered by CY. Thank you for your "thoughts".

Today's lesson will include a biography in addition to the history timeline.

After World War II was over out family moved back to Greenville, SC from Baltimore. My father took a course in refrigeration and air conditioning and went to work at the Winn-Dixie warehouse just out side Greenville. We moved into a small house within walking distance of the warehouse. This meant I was going to school at Paris High School which no longer exists. For four summer vacations in a row I spent every day at Paris Mountain State Park, hanging around the pool ogling the girls. This was one of the happiest times of my life.

The rescuers and suppliers to earthquake stricken Haiti are having a hell of a time. There are about nine aircraft orbiting over the airport in Port-au-Prince that cannot land. All of the ramp space is taken by other aircraft waiting to re-fuel. The problem is that the the airport has long since been out of all kinds of aircraft fuel meaning the aircraft on the ground cannot depart and make room for the loaded aircraft overhead. The have considered landing at airports in the Dominican Republic but they are packed for the same reason. It looks like all that anyone could think of was getting supplies to them as quick as possible without any thought about the logistics involved. They are now at a standstill until aircraft fuel can be brought in by ship and ferried ashore. Normally the ships would pull up to a pier and pump the fuel directly to underground tanks at the airport but the piers and pipelines are in disarray because of the earthquake. They should have given the responsibility to the US Air Force combat teams...There would have been fuel available, I promise you. Either that or they would have used cargo aircraft that can be re-fueled in flight. That would have been the end of the fuel problems. By late afternoon on Thursday a partial solution was found and supplies began to trickle in.

I looked at the Port-au-Prince airport on Google Earth Thursday evening. It is a typical third world country airport. The runway is long enough (about 8,500 ft.) but there are very few taxiways. This means that when an aircraft lands it must turn around and the end and taxi back down the runway for half it's length before taxiing to the main ramp. It also means that if an aircraft wants to take off, they must taxi down the runway to the end, turn around and take off. This configuration would severely inhibit an operation moving a lot of large aircraft. On top of that, the ramp space is minimal which severely restricts re-fueling. It is a mess, y'all. By the way, I was an air traffic controller for 25 years.

Here is the biography followed by the timeline.

Sir Isaac Newton

Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643 in Woolsthorpe Manor, Lincolnshire, England. Isaac’s father died three months before Isaac was born. His mother, Hannah Ayscough remarried a minister named Barnabus Smith when little Isaac was two years old. Isaac was essentially treated as an orphan and was raised by his grandmother Margery Ayscough at Woolsthorpe. He did not have a happy childhood and resented his treatment by his stepfather and mother for the rest of his life. Isaac came from a family of farmers led by his father, also named Isaac, who he never knew but was a wealthy man because of his lands and cattle. In spite of this, Isaac’s father was uneducated and could not even sign his name. His stepfather died in 1653 and he was raised by an extended family of his mother, grandmother one half-brother and two half-sisters. About this time he started attending the Free Grammar School in Grantham. However, he seemed not to be interested in academia and was described as “idle” and “inattentive”. This also was a trait in another mathematical genius named Albert Einstein. Isaac’s mother was now a wealthy and influential person in Lincolnshire and wanted Isaac back running the farm. He quickly proved quickly be not adapted for that and persuaded his mother to allow him to return to school. Even though the school was only five mile away from Woolsthorpe, Isaac moved in with one of the teachers at the school named John Stokes, an exceptional teacher and motivator. It was at this point that Isaac’s mind began to blossom under the tutelage of Stokes. There is no evidence that Isaac received any instruction in mathematics but it is almost certain the Stokes introduced Isaac to the teaching of the mathematician Euclid which may have stirred his passion for mathematics.

At the age of 18 he entered Trinity College at Cambridge University. Even though his mother was wealthy, Isaac entered the school as a “sizar”. A sizar was the equivalent of a student attending school on a work scholarship. Isaac originally entered Cambridge to study law. Cambridge traditionally was dominated by the philosophy of Aristotle but free thought to a certain degree was allowed and it then that Isaac discovered the thoughts and opinions of other great thinkers like Descartes and Hobbes. He showed a special interest the teachings of the astronomers Copernicus and Galileo. He also studied the teachings of optics as taught by Johann Kepler. After reading all of this material, Isaac wrote a book entitled “Certain Philosophical Questions”. It is a fascinating account of how his mind was forming at this early age. He started the text of this book with “Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but by best friend is the truth” showing him as a free thinker already.

No one knows how Isaac was introduced to advanced mathematics but it appears that it began in the fall of 1663 when he bought a book about astrology and found he could not understand the mathematics in it. He then borrowed his professor’s copy of Euclid’s book named “Elements” and read it again with a different outlook. His professor, Isaac Barrow, will play a significant role in Newton’s life. After reading Euclid, Newton ravenously read every book written by mathematicians that he could get his hands on. Eventually Barrow became the chairman of the Lucasian Society at Cambridge. The Lucasian Society is one that only studies mathematics and Barrow knew what he had in Newton’s phenomenal mind. In 1663 Newton was made a fellow at Cambridge and this was the beginning of his meteoric rise in the scientific community. Newton received a bachelor’s degree in April of 1665. He had yet displayed his brilliance in mathematics but in the summer of 1665 Cambridge closed its doors because Bubonic Plague had broken out in London and Newton went home to Woolsthorpe Manor to wait it out. It was during the next two years at Woolsthorpe alone that Newton did some of the greatest creative thinking ever documented. After the plague had run its course he returned to Cambridge he showed Barrow his notes on a mathematical system that he had worked out on his own that was the basis for present integral and differential calculus. Newton called them it Method of Fluxions. This system could solve problems previously deemed difficult or impossible to resolve. Needless to say that Barrow was flabbergasted at Newton’s stunning achievement and recognized Newton the genius that he was. Barrow tried to ensure that Newton’s brilliance be known to the world and offered his writings to be published and sent them to the London publisher John Collins. Collins recognized the writings as coming from the mind of a genius also and sent them to William Brouncker, the president of the Royal Society. Brouncker also saw its value also but it got no further because Newton wanted his manuscripts returned. He was afraid he would be ridiculed. The Royal Society is an organization dedicated to the sciences. In 1669 Barrow resigned from the Lucasian Society to pursue a career in the ministry and recommended that Newton take his place even though he was only 27 years old.

Newton’s first work in the Lucasian Society was the examination of optics. Aristotle had taught that light was a pure wave but Newton’s study showed the light acts like particles but other scientists refuted Newton’s findings. Later on German physicists Max Planck did indeed suggested and proved that light behaves as particles and began a whole different branch of physics called quantum mechanics. Newton’s greatest achievement was his works in the physics of celestial mechanics. He discussed his theories with yet another brilliant astrophysicist name Sir Edmond Halley. It was in Newton’s studies that produced the Newton’s three laws of motion that are still prevalent today. Halley finally persuaded Newton to assemble all his thoughts along this line and publish them in a book which Halley would finance. Newton delivered the manuscript of the ‘Principal of Natural Philosophy”. The book was written in Latin and it read Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. After the book was published it became known worldwide as the Principia (prin-kip-ee-ah) and it was recognized as a stupendous feat of the human mind. It is recognized today as the greatest scientific book ever written.

Then in 1685 James II became king. He had recently converted to be a Roman Catholic and began a program of installing Catholics in important and influential positions including Cambridge. Whenever a vacancy occurred at Cambridge, the king would send in a Catholic as a replacement. Newton was a devout protestant and encouraged the president of Cambridge to fight this outrage. Finally the king wanted a Benedictine Monk to get a degree from Cambridge without attending a class. Then the University president put his foot down and said hell no and he was fired and replaced by a Catholic. This debacle came to an end when William of Orange came looking to overthrow James and in 1688 James found out that all the protestants in the army had deserted and he fled to France. Newton was elected as Parliament representative from Cambridge because of his courageous stand against the Catholics. In 1693 Newton retired from research because of his second nervous breakdown. The exact reason for the breakdown is not known but some of the reasons suggested are: He dabbled in alchemy (turning lead into gold) and may have inadvertently ingested some of the lead. He broke up with his longtime friend mathematician Fatio de Duillier and finally he had problems with his religion. Newton believed that Christ was a superior human being but was not superhuman. Newton suffered from depression most of his life probably caused by the above. He finally was selected a Warden of the Mint and then Chancellor of the Exchequer that made him very wealthy. Not only that after he moved to London he saw what the night life was like and was enamored by it. He may have became a party animal, albeit the smartest scientist on the planet. He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705. He was elected President of the Royal Society in 1703 and was re-elected every year until his death on March 31, 1727.

When he was told how great he was by his admirers he said “I feel like a child walking on a beach picking up a smoother pebble or a prettier shell whilst the whole ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me.”

When he was asked why he could see so much more than the other scientists he said. ”It is because I am standing on the shoulders of the scientists that preceded me.” And every scientist/mathematician that came after him stood on his shoulders.

This man is my hero for these reasons:

He led a long and productive life.

He was recognized for the genius that he was by his peers during his lifetime.

He died wealthy.

He was mostly self-taught.

This small biography in no way describes all the contributions this giant made to science.

This date in history January 15

1559    On this date exactly two months after the death of her half-sister Mary I, the daughter of Henry VIII, Elizabeth Tudor, is crowned as Queen Elizabeth I of England. Mary I was also a daughter of Henry VIII but instead of being a follower of the Church of England as founded by her father, Mary was a devout Catholic. While in power Mary made sure that he surrounded herself with Catholics in positions of power especially direct representatives of the Pope. After the rise of Elizabeth to power, things changed. Elizabeth was a devout protestant which pleased the general population. They felt that a protestant would be more tolerant of religions that the tight-assed Mary and they were right. After she took power there were several attempts on her life by the Catholics but Elizabeth saw to it that heads rolled in retribution. With the guidance of Secretary of State Sir Thomas Cecil, Elizabeth was able to uproot all of the powerful Catholics entrenched in the Court. Elizabeth spent quite a bit of time in the Tower of London as a prisoner of Mary but she eventually prevailed. After Elizabeth had been in power for several years, her cousin known as Mary, Queen of Scots rose into power in Scotland but she also was a Catholic in a country of rock-ribbed Presbyterian Scots and they did not sit still very long with Mary stacking her court with Catholics in places of power and the Scottish lords kicked her out of power. Mary tried to re-take the throne of Scotland by force but the Scots were too much for her army and it was almost annihilated and Mary, Queen of Scots hightailed it to England and asked her cousin, Elizabeth I for asylum. Elizabeth granted her cousin safety in England. Then yet another attempt was made on Elizabeth’s life by the Catholics and Mary was caught as being involved. If Elizabeth had died, Mary, Queen of Scots would have been in line for the English throne. For this indiscretion Elizabeth had Mary’s head removed on the lawn of Fotheringay Castle by a big guy with a big axe. Elizabeth was known s the “Virgin Queen” because she never married. She said that she would never marry so her power would not be diluted. Whether or not she was a chaste virgin is not known but she did have two boyfriends that we know of, they were the Earl of Essex and the Earl of Leicester. It was during Elizabeth’s reign that England became a world sea power including the enormous defeat of the Spanish Armada and eventually England became the most powerful nation on the planet. Elizabeth died in 1603 as one of the greatest monarchs in history.

1865    On this date Union General Alfred Terry and 9,000 troops launch a successful attack on Fort Fisher in the mouth of the Cape Fear River in front of Wilmington, North Carolina. Wilmington was one the CSA’s most used blockade runner ports along with Mobile, Alabama. About a month before the Confederates had withstood a monstrous bombardment from the Union navy and a subsequent land assault. The land assault was repulsed and the Union focused their attention on Mobile and was successful in capturing that valuable port. Then they came back to Wilmington and put forth a maximum effort and Fort Fisher fell. Three months later CSA General Lee and US General Grant met at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia and hammered out surrender and the Civil War was over. By the way, it was General Alfred Terry that was in command of the Army containing the 7th Cavalry, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer commanding, that was annihilated at Little Big Horn. He also spent a hell of a lot of time out on the Great Plains pursuing the Sioux and Cheyenne led by people like Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Dull Knife, Sitting Bull, etc.

Born today:

1809    French writer Pierre Proudhon. He said “Newspapers are the cemeteries of ideas”. If you think about it, it is true because the newspapers only print what they want to.

1906    Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis. He said “If there were no women, all the money in the world would have no meaning.” This is true especially for men to pay alimony, child support and an amount that would provide for a lifestyle to which she had become accustomed.

1929    Civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. He said “There is nothing more dangerous in the world than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” I think Reverend King knew Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi.

Died today:

1865    US educator Edward Everett. He said “Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.” Hey Ed, I don’t think a group of intellectuals would have stopped Adolph Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte and Attila the Hun and many others.

Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow